The Angel in the Wood
by Mistoffelees l'Immortelle
Summary: Based loosely off the South Park episode 'It's Christmas in Canada'. Mistoffelees sets out to reclaim his adopted brother in Canada, and meets the kind, considerate, and charming Loopy de Loop. Slash; rated M for later prospective later scenes.
1. Chapter 1

Fanfic: Loopy de Loop X Cats

Chapter One:  
The organ began with a prelude, breaking that awkward silence between hymns in a Mass, and the choir began soon after with 'Les Anges dans nos Campagnes' in French, followed by a short extempore on the organ, and the final benediction.  
'Natalicium tempus ita Benedicite, mira ut sit nuntius septimana post nativitatem domini. Consummatum est.' The aged priest in full regalia spoke with a clear voice for his age, and the crowd suddenly put down their books of prayer, and flocked like so many sheep toward the door.  
Placing down his book of prayer thoughtfully and slowly, Loopy de Loop gazed upwards upon the endless array of pipe and nave above him. He smiled upon the intricate wooden designs of cherubic angels crushing demons beneath their plump white feet, while in their midst a titanic Christ sombrely gazed down in a mirthless benediction.  
He felt a momentary tug on his idle left arm, and saw the mass of dark coats moving beside him. He placed his book of prayer down, crossed himself his customary four times, and exited the nave. He walked to the front parlour to his heavy black greatcoat and high hat. Loopy wrapped himself in his customary heavy scarf and coat, and donned his shiny silk hat over the tight-knit tuque which covered his scalp and ears warmly.  
He was about to walk out the front door of the church when he noticed a small wooden box on a small wooden stand by his side. A small sign, hand-written and hand-coloured by small children, read FOR THE SICK in garish pink and yellow. Loopy smiled and reached into his pocket, pulling out a fiver and placing it in the box.  
He went out to where his car was covered by a few centimetres of new-fallen snow. Loopy brushed the stuff off his windshield and started to warm his car. Having started the car successfully, he went back inside to find Father Christophe, the resident priest.  
He went back into the nave and found the aged Father sitting in the front pew, head bowed, lips moving silently. Loopy waited until the fellow's lips ceased their prayer, and tapped the churchman on the shoulder. The greying ecclesiastic glanced up at Loopy, and saluted him in bright French.  
-Bonjour, Loopy. Comment êtes-vous?  
-Oh, je suis tout à fait bien. Un peu froid de l'extérieur. Un service très agréable, comme d'habitude, le Père.  
-S'il vous plaît, he said informally, appelez-moi Christophe.  
-Christophe, j'ai remarqué que vous aviez une petite boîte juste à côté de la porte qui disait «Pour les malades». J'espère que vous ne me dérangerait pas si je mets dans un billet de cinq livres.  
-Oh, certainement pas, Loopy! Qui a été mis là par Sœur Margaret et les enfants, elle enseigne dans l'Ecole du Dimanche. Et c'était très généreux de votre part, mon frère en Christ.  
-Oh, mais vous pouvez certainement l'utiliser, Loopy responded. Et dans l'esprit du Christ, voici un autre billet de cinq livres pour Sœur Margaret et ses enfants. The kind-hearted wolf produced from his wallet another crisp fiver and placed in the priest's hand.  
-Dieu te bénisse, monsieur. The priest was trembling.  
-Vous êtes les bienvenus, Père, et je vous offriez bonne journée! And Loopy strolled off, happy to have done somebody a favour so generous.

['Hello, Loopy. How are you?'  
'Oh, I am quite well. A little chilly from the outside. A lovely service, as usual, Father.'  
'Please, call me Christophe.'  
'Christophe, I noticed that you had a little box just beside the door that read 'For the Sick'. I hope you wouldn't mind if I put in a fiver.'  
'Oh, certainly not, Loopy! That was put there by Sister Margaret and the children she teaches in Sunday School. And that was quite generous of you, my brother in Christ.'  
'Oh, but you could certainly use it. And in the spirit of Christ, here's another fiver for Sister Margaret and her children.'  
'God bless you, sir.'  
'You are most welcome, Father, and I bid you good day!']

II

Loopy drove from the church to his house rather swiftly and nestled his car securely in his garage. He entered the front parlour and shook himself vigorously before doffing his winter vestments and hanging them to dry.  
He surveyed the front parlour, small and neatly decorated, with brightly-garlanded windows and little waxen candles standing erect and unlit on the sills. He walked further into the interior, and gazed with pride upon his living room, in the midst of which there stood a marvellous Christmas tree, a representative of that illustrious family of evergreens, the Scotch Pine, adorned with all manner of ornaments, tinsel, and coloured lights, and topped with a marvellous gilt star which seemed to defy its God-sent predecessor in radiance and beauty.  
'Tres bien,' Loopy said to himself as he followed the delicious odour of chicken broth to his kitchen. He stirred the grand old pot of chicken soup (recipe via his grandmere) and poured a hearty serving into a gleaming porcelain bowl and sat down to eat. He breathed a silent prayer of thanks to 'Jesu et ton Mere Marie' before gingerly sipping his soup. He found it as delightfully warm and satisfying as ever, and almost carelessly dug into the bowl in front of him. He savoured every drop of warm liquid and slowly chewed every morsel of chicken.  
Later, in his bedroom, Loopy sat half-dozing pleasantly in his armchair, grinning snugly over a cup of chocolate. He turned on the small radio that stood next to him on his desk, and was struck by the beauty of Celine Dion's rendering of 'O Holy Night', a song which he had always loved, and which had brought him to tears every time he heard it. He half-hummed, half-chanted the first verse, and sang out nobly at the chorus, his voice trembling in sync with Celine's.  
The choral interlude felt to Loopy's furred ears like wool, and at the second chorus he felt tears of ecstasy streaming down his cheeks. He couldn't finish singing for the tears which seemed to constrict his voice with happiness. He glanced out the window at the snow falling gently on itself, robing everything in a dizzying white. He sobbed with a open smile on his face, and placed his chocolate on the desk, burying his head in the blanket wrapped round him.  
He wiped his eyes after a while, and stood up, echoes of Celine's melismas ringing in his ears. He left the bedroom and walked to the fireplace, picking out a framed photograph and another wolf of larger build. The photograph was in black-and-white, and elegantly fitted to its frame of interlocking Celtic crosses and swirls. Loopy sank into the couch by the fire with a sigh of sudden depression. The wolf in the photograph, he recalled all too well, was his ex-boyfriend, Pierre l'Allemagne.

III

Loopy had always considered himself bisexual, and found nothing discomforting about it. He had realised his feelings for other males while still in the eighth grade, and had about the same time developed his first romantic relationship. It had been a platonic affair for the most part, until one evening after a school concert he had finished performing in. The other boy, whose name Loopy had nearly forgotten, took him round behind the school and seduced him.  
Loopy recalled being bottom, and sighed out of sweet remembrance.  
After he left high school, and graduated almost immediately to college, he attempted to conceal his homosexual side by engaging in a relationship, short-lived and ultimately of little worth, with a domineering older woman who, while to a point sexually satisfying, was intellectually incompatible with him. Thereafter, he engaged in several relationships with fellow male and female students, but to no avail.  
He graduated from eight years of study, majoring in both English and European Literature, and wandered from occupation to occupation, all the while concealing his homosexuality from the public, guarding his one secret. He would say nothing of his sexuality, but would at night and during the weekends patronise those houses of ill repute and bordellos catering to closeted gentlemen with l'argent. It was lucky for him, he thought, to have not picked up any infections, and it was prudent of him to always wear a condom.  
After about two years of transitory job-shifting and general vagrancy, Loopy met Pierre. Both had relatively the same interests and were intellectually compatible. Loopy enjoyed the frequent travelling Pierre did as part of his occupation.  
Then, Pierre came home one evening intoxicated, angered, and with a gigolo on his right arm. Loopy recalled with anguish the steps through the snow, the oncoming headlights, the blasphemies, the mass that had been Pierre lying in the road, one arm outstretched.  
He stopped, the memories fading abruptly from his mind, and found himself sobbing again. He tried to wipe his eyes, but to little avail. He resolved himself to tears, and placed the picture slowly back on the mantle.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two:

In the Jellicle 'Junkyard', so affectionately termed, all was ice and snow on the outside. Everything, from the immense car that stood in its centre to the littlest abandoned beer vessel, was thickly blanketed with snow and thinly encrusted with ice. Some kittens were skating in pairs by a small manmade pond that had frozen over.  
In Munkustrap's house, constructed rather haphazardly out of the available detritus and cemented together, a mighty fir graced the living room, crowned with an august star and circled round with lights, garlands, and ornaments of all kinds. Some small kittens with blotched and parti-coloured fur were sitting round the television watching reruns of old Christmas specials, while other older felines helped Munkustrap and Demeter place ornaments on the tree.  
Munkustrap was a tom of thirty-four, silver-furred with black stripes, and Demeter was a gold-and-black queen of almost the same age. They had been married for several years, and had but one child, a queen-kit named Jemima, who was a beautiful girl with large round eyes that spoke of childish inquisitiveness and wonder, and dark splotches on a light coat of fur.  
Munkustrap sat down in his large armchair as the last ornaments were put on the tree, and smiled in contentment at the finished spectacle. Demeter leaned in beside him, momentarily nuzzling him with warmth. He nuzzled back, and said:  
'I suggest we get to packing, dear.'  
He meant their Christmas vacation to Ottawa. Every year Munkustrap would pile all the cats together to go to Canada and see the sights, visit relatives, and open the best presents a kitten could ask Pere Noel for.  
'Alright, we've got to get packing for the trip to-morrow. You all know the drill.' Munkustrap had been doing this for so many years that he could map the entire trip out, anticipating any hazard or hindrance and knowing how to circumvent it. He sent the kittens and Demeter off, then thought aloud:  
'Where's Mistoffelees?'

II

Mistoffelees was in his room, in bed, lying in a warm half-doze, gazing over-amorously at glossy, lip-smeared photographs of the Rum Tum Tugger. Misto, as he was addressed by his equals, was a small, thin-built feline with a tuxedo coat. He had a passion for only two things: poetry and musical theatre. Everything else was either uninteresting or of less interest to him. Mistoffelees wrote poetry constantly, thinking that he could write nothing else. His favourites were the poets of the nineteenth century: the Romantics, and Tennyson, but he also had a firm grounding in more modern voices; namely, those of Pound, Eliot, and their associates. Altogether, he seemed a content tom.  
Mistoffelees got out of bed, placed the pictures back under the bed in his secret hiding place, and began to pack for Christmas vacation, knowing Munkustrap would be irritated if he did not.

III

The next day, with the car all packed and hours to kill, the kittens sat in the living room gazing at more Christmas special reruns, while Munkustrap and Demeter were talking to a pair of cats they had never seen before, but who seemed strangely familiar to them. The male cat wore a dark suit with astrakhan slashes, and the female wore a knee-length blue skirt and summery yellow blouse beneath her coffee-coloured fur wraps.  
'Please explain yourselves, M. and Mme Pourfois,' Munkustrap said with concern. The male lit a cigarette, slowly puffed, and began:  
'My name is Jean-Pierre Pourfois, and this is my wife Therese. We had a child some years ago, but could not support a family and put the child, a boy, up for adoption. We were told you might be the guardians of the-'  
_'Mon Dieu!'_ Mme Pourfois exclaimed as Plato, a little red-coated kitten with sleepy eyes, entered the room slowly. _'C'est nos fils, Jean-Pierre! Mon Dieu! C'est Jean-Alexandre!'_  
The couple got up and raced over to Plato, whose eight year-old face spoke of confusion as the strange cats towered over his slight form muttering incoherently in Quebec French.  
'What is going on?' Munkustrap spoke suddenly with danger in his voice.  
'This is him, our son Jean-Alexandre,' M. Pourfois replied happily, picking up Plato playfully and balancing him on his strong shoulders.  
'Put Plato down!' Munkustrap shouted suddenly. M. Pourfois, startled, placed the frightened kitten back on the ground. After a minute of silence, Munkustrap spoke again:  
'I understand your situation, Monsieur and Madame Pourfois, but you cannot waltz in here and take back the son you put up for adoption.'  
'M. Munkustrap, you do not understand our situation fully,' replied M. Pourfois, sitting back down. 'The new Prime Minister of Canada has issued a decree stating that all persons of Canadian descent must return to their homeland. I have a copy of the document itself.' He produced a neatly folded document from his coat's interior pocket and placed it in front of Munkustrap and Demeter. It was neatly printed in English and French, and stated in no uncertain terms that all children of Canadian descent were to return to their homeland permanently; they were also ordered to enlist in the armed forces, and were prohibited from drinking alcohol and smoking, among other things.  
Munkustrap felt a sharp feeling of defeat rise and fall in his stomach, and half-tossed the document back at the Quebecois couple in disgust. Demeter felt tears rising in her eyes, and tried to protest, but found her words constricted by despondency. Plato still stared, confused by what had transpired. Dazedly, he held out his hands, and let M. Pourfois pick him up again and hand him carefully to Mme Pourfois, who began to pet him gingerly as the adoptive parents looked on in misery.  
After an awkward silence, Munkustrap warned:  
'We will go to court, Monsieur.'  
'You mustn't, Monsieur. It would make things so much worse for all of us, and it wouldn't be in the spirit of the holiday to take our son from us, considering we have the Canadian government on our side,' said M. Pourfois.

IV

The next day, in a large courtroom barren of audience, the Hon. J. Oglinton pronounced his final statement with a pretentious air of melancholy and judiciary decorum:  
'The authority of the Canadian government can be overturned in this matter. I therefore have no choice but to award custody of the kit to his birth parents.' Munkustrap and Demeter grew pale at this, while M. and Mme. Pourfois grew rosy-cheeked and gleeful, hugging each other in less-than-stoical emotion. Mistoffelees, who had gone to watch, stared with open mouth and stupefied expression.  
'Plato's not my little brother anymore?' he asked aloud, his words falling on deaf ears.

V

Outside their residence, Munkustrap, Demeter, and Mistoffelees watched as the Quebecois couple packed Plato's clothes and other belongings into the boot of their economical car and started the engine. The three adoptive cats cowered over Plato, bestowing him hugs and kisses and tearful whispers of farewell.  
'You've been a good boy, Plato,' Munkustrap muttered softly.  
'No matter what happens, you'll always be our good little boy,' whimpered Demeter with tears forming frets down her soft cheeks. 'Remember that.'  
'You will be my little brother forever,' said Mistoffelees, restraining his emotion to little avail. His sky-blue eyes held the crystalline beginnings of tears: sincere tears, summoned from the inmost depths of the young tom's heart.  
'Jean-Alexandre, we must get going,' said Mme. Pourfois, speaking English for the first time.  
Plato stubbornly clung to Mistoffelees, crying, 'No!'  
'Jean-Alexandre, we have to leave,' she reiterated softly.  
'No, no, no, no!' he rejoined, sobbing into his brother's shirt.  
M. Pourfois produced a small, coffee-coloured morsel from his coat pocket.  
'I have some chocolate,' he said, holding the object out.  
Plato's attitude changed entirely the moment he saw the chocolate. 'Chocolate!' he cried joyously, racing into the car, and grabbing the chocolate from his birth father's hands. Shutting Plato's door and getting into the driver's seat of the small virescent car, M. Pourfois drove his wife and son away to Canada, leaving Munkustrap and Demeter in the cold hugging lachrymosely and Mistoffelees staring after them doubly lachrymose.  
After five minutes of fruitless shivering, Mistoffelees asked:  
'Couldn't we talk to this new Prime Minister of Canada? I'm sure if he knew our situation-'  
'Oh Misto, that would take time and money that we don't have,' Munkustrap uncharacteristically sobbed, staining his wife's sleeve with tears.  
Mistoffelees walked back inside, to where Jemima and the other kittens sat oblivious to what had transpired. He walked up the stairs to his room, and sat down on his bed, trying to think of a plan to retrieve his little brother.


End file.
